Companies & Brands

Calmann-Lévy

Calmann-Lévy was founded in 1836, and its building's pediment is inscribed with the names of some of literature's greatest figures, including Balzac, Baudelaire, D'Annunzio, Dumas, Gorki, Flaubert, Hugo, Lamartine, Pirandello, Renan, Sand and Stendhal. The prestige of the past, however, has never overshadowed the ambitions of the present. On the contrary, Calmann-Lévy has always been committed to creating collections that quickly become flagship brands in their own right, such as Traduit De, founded in 1946, which publishes translations of Knut Hamsun and Hermann Hesse, among others, and Liberté de l'Esprit, created in 1947 by Raymond Aron, who is also published by Calmann-Lévy alongside Hannah Arendt, Robert Paxton and Léon Poliakov. In an eponymous collection created in partnership with the Mémorial de la Shoah Jewish museum and documentation centre in Paris, Calmann-Lévy publishes a range of texts whose scientific and historical value represent a significant advance in the understanding and knowledge of the Holocaust. In 2010, Calmann-Lévy created France de Toujours et d'Aujourd'hui, devoted to regional French literature, thanks to which such novelists as Jean Anglade, Jean-Paul Malaval, Antonin Malroux and Françoise Bourdon have joined the line-up. Launched in 2011, the Robert Pépin Presents... collection is proud to publish such major thriller writers as Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos and Lee Child. The collection follows in the footsteps of authors who have established the publisher's reputation in the genre, such as Patricia Highsmith, Donna Leon and, more recently, Tana French and Donato Carrisi, whose novels The Whisperer and L'Ecorchée became major worldwide successes. Authors translated from foreign languages include Martin Amis whose Zone of Interest publishes in 2015, Howard Jacobson (Man Booker prize laureate), or Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things. As for French literature, in addition to such emblematic authors as Barbara Constantine or Elise Fontenaille, new voices such as Nathalie Hug, Denis Jeambar, Anouar Benmalek, Louis Chedid and René Guitton. Nonfiction constitutes a substantial share of the publisher's production, and Calmann-Lévy took particular pride in publishing the autobiographical reflections of Malala Yousafzaï, the 2014 Peace Prize Laureate, or Nora Fraisse's bestselling testimony Marion, 13 ans pour toujours.
Calmann-Lévy also publishes the following imprints:
Editions 1: the imprint's reputation is based on the popular appeal of its publications and authors, including Pierre Bellemare.
Orbit: an imprint of the Hachette group based in the UK, United States and Australia. In France, since late 2009, the line-up has been exclusively devoted to fantasy literature from such masters of the genre as Brandon Sanderson and Deborah Harkness.